Green Aviation

Turning Aviation Green

Save the date!

We are pleased to announce that we are once again co-organisers of the world’s leading event on aviation and carbon! The next global conference will take place on 5-6 November 2018 at the Marriott hotel at London Heathrow Airport, voted the best venue in Europe! Our events attract as many as 300 aviation and sustainability professionals from 120 airlines plus the carbon industry, EU, government and NGO reps representing more than 60 countries around the world! Please bookmark and visit the Aviation Carbon website website for further details.

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)

The international community recently adopted ICAO’s transformational Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), a major plank in the UN agency’s environmental protection strategy. Take a look at the video below to understand how the scheme operates, then please let us know what you think about its effectiveness to reduce aviation emissions.

From our perspective, CORSIA’s environmental impact is very small. It only deals with emissions growth beyond a 2019-2020 baseline, therefore it ignores all current and historical emissions.

Secondly,only 65 out of 191 countries agreed at the outset to participate in CORSIA and the scheme only covers the emissions between those countries, but not the massive domestic emissions of countries such as the USA and China, let alone the rest of the world.

Thirdly, the title refers to “reductions”, however, there are no absolute reductions as a consequence of this scheme!

There are more issues with CORSIA, contact us if you would like to discuss further.

Environmental records shattered as climate change ‘plays out before us’

The world is careening towards an environment never experienced before by humans, with the temperature of the air and oceans breaking records, sea levels reaching historic highs and carbon dioxide surpassing a key milestone, a major international report has found. The “state of the climate” report, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) with input from hundreds of scientists from 62 countries, confirmed there was a “toppling of several symbolic mileposts” in heat, sea level rise and extreme weather in 2015. Read the full article at the Guardian

Solar Impulse makes history!

This is a historical day for humanity and aviation, Solar Impulse has now completed its final leg. One day many of us will be telling our children, grand children, great grand children or other family members and friends about this incredible event for humanity. As aviation or environment professionals or students we should be really proud of this unique and inspiring voyage: Solar Impulse

Green Aviation attends IPCC seminar at United Nations

Green Aviation attended an invitation-only IPCC information session at the United Nations HQ in Geneva on 16 June 2016.

A question was put to the IPCC Chair Dr. Hoesung Lee by Andrew Pozniak, Director of Green Aviation International concerning the lack of effective progress by a large part of the aviation sector despite the scientific consensus requiring urgent action.

The seminar was streamed live worldwide and also recorded on the IPCC’s Facebook page, but unfortunately the sound quality is not great. Green Aviation asked their question at 38m 50s into the stream, or if the video clip is showing time remaining then it’s at around the -29.00 minute mark: IPCC Facebook Video

Scientists Discover Best CO2 Reduction “Technology” - Trees!

Scientists at the University of Oxford University have concluded research which found that trees are the best “technology” to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and which could help to reduce the impact of global warming. The researchers looked at various methods of reducing CO2 including capturing CO2 directly from industrial sources such as power stations and factories, extracting CO2 directly from the atmosphere and even adding limestone to the oceans. Of all the methods looked at the most effective were planting trees, or converting wood waste into a material similar to charcoal which could then be incorporated into soil. The university found that utilising such solutions as afforestation were not only low-cost but could draw several years worth of CO2 from the atmosphere. Other solutions are high-cost, require large amounts of energy and face many challenges in their development.
Source: Bloomberg
Oxford University Report: Stranded Carbon Assets and Negative Emissions Technologies, published 3 Feb 2015, Authors: Ben Caldecott, Guy Lomax, Mark Workman

NASA reveals dramatic impact of forest clearance

Remarkable data has recently arrived from the first satellite dedicated to monitoring levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, with some very revealing results. NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-d), which was launched in July 2014, measures the concentrations of carbon dioxide around the globe

The patch of dense carbon dioxide above China was expected due to very high CO2 emissions from power stations and factories, however, many observers are surprised by the large areas of orange and red over the southern hemisphere’s extensive savannah and rainforest. Farmers in these areas are known to clear land at springtime but these images suggest a bigger impact on the atmosphere than previously thought.

This image helps to confirm our view at GAIA that whilst increased CO2 emissions are a key contributory factor to climate change, another vital component is often under-played or even ignored, which is the vast deforestation taking place in the tropical zones especially over Brazil and Indonesia. Such deforestation not only removes the natural process of carbon absorption by trees, but the loss of rainforest directly changes local climate and has a knock-on effect globally on weather patterns and longer term climate change. If you want to learn more about the issues of deforestation and how the problem is starting to being addressed, please visit our friends at the Global Canopy Programme.